


Tight Spaces

by Krethes



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Claustrophobia, Hogwarts Third Year, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Mention of Child Abuse, Panic Attacks, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-16 03:07:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29694102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krethes/pseuds/Krethes
Summary: Lyall Lupin would do anything to cure his son, and his attempts ranged from harmless to downright terrifying. Years later, Remus still feels the impact of his attempts and has to confront the panic attacks."Remus didn't want to go in the hole. You'd have to be insane to willingly agree to be lowered into a 4x4 concrete space and then covered back up with dirt. He protested and pleaded and tried to reason with his dad that it wouldn't work and that he didn't want to be buried alive."
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 2
Kudos: 47





	Tight Spaces

**Author's Note:**

> If you are sensitive to unfair and harmful things being done on a child (<10 years), please read with caution.

Remus Lupin did not like locked doors, could not tolerate the smell of vinegar, and had a deep-seated fear of priests. But most of all, he  _ hated _ small spaces. 

At the age of 13, Remus had lived longer  _ with _ his lycanthropy than he had without. He had faint, soundless memories of what life was like before the attack, but they were undersaturated and hard to hold onto in his brain, like grains of sand or like the slippery pieces of seaweed that washed onto the shore near his family home.

His friends knew about him now, they being irritatingly clever boys who'd riddled it out before their first year of Hogwarts was over. They'd been kind enough to wait to confront him until September of their second year so that Remus could not agonize over the implications of them knowing all summer, alone. They were third years now and most of the awkwardness around His Little Problem, as James determined to refer to it, had dissipated. 

He didn't feel like he deserved their acceptance. While werewolves hadn't been covered in detail in their Defense Against the Dark Arts curriculum, Remus had read four times his body weight in books about himself, what he was. What a monster he was. The damage he could do.

While his friends seemed to be able to look past the monster, Remus’s father hadn't looked him in the eye in years. His mother always looked sad and stressed when she thought he wasn't looking, but at least she could pretend not to be terrified of him. 

Lyall had tried everything under the sun to cure his son. Remus's first post-bite memories were uncomfortable ones. His Transformations were not as traumatic as they were becoming now (human children shared an odd number of similarities with wolf cubs) but almost every month for five years, Lyall had tried something new.

It started tame enough. A few ropes to bind his hands and legs to a chair while Lyall recited complex anti-curse spells. But even a pint-sized werewolf had sharp needle teeth that could spread the disease, so he'd had to retreat when Remus started to turn.

There was the time when Remus had to bathe in vinegar for a week solid leading up to the full moon, and he'd never been happier to be homeschooled as he was then. Their entire house reeked of the vile stuff and his mother kept the windows open to try to air it out. Predictably, Remus still transformed.

Drinking the vinegar by the pint for a week hadn't worked either, and had made Remus so ill he'd spent the next week shivering in bed with stomach pains. 

To this day, Remus took his fish and chips dry, without malt vinegar, and felt like vomiting if he smelled the sour liquid. An aversion to vinegar was easy enough to explain away, though. Not everyone liked the taste and its smell  _ was _ abrasive even to human noses. 

But as he stood there in a narrow passage that never seemed to end, Remus found himself unable to move and unable to tell his friends  _ why _ . It was one thing to tell them he'd been homeschooled and kept away from other children and extended family for their safety, but he worried what they would think of his father if they knew…

*~*~*

He was ten and Lyall was desperate. His study was filled to the brim with wizard and Muggle literature from around the world in twenty different languages all with their own take on lycanthropy and shapeshifting. His newest theory was that if the werewolf couldn't  _ see _ the moon, couldn't be bathed in its light or gamma radiation, then maybe it couldn't Transform.

Remus balked when he saw the hole. It was fifteen feet deep and an hour's drive from their home (digging in their sandy terrain was not ideal). Lyall had fabricated a story about a gas leak to remove all of the local residents within a three-mile radius. He told Remus it would all be okay, it would have to work this time.

Remus didn't  _ want _ to go in the hole. You'd have to be insane to willingly agree to be lowered into a 4x4 concrete space and then covered back up with dirt. He protested and pleaded and tried to reason with his dad that it  _ wouldn't _ work and that he didn't want to be buried alive.

But Lyall's guilt and frantic desire to cure his son was not abated by the theatrics. He assured Remus it was completely safe and it would only be for the eleven or so hours the moon was visible in the sky. He told him he'd be nearby and would not let him hurt anyone. 

And so Remus went in the box. He'd kept it together until he heard the sound of dirt hitting the roof. Every dull thud made his panic rise. He broke out in a cold sweat and began to pace. He was going to run out of air. The roof was going to collapse in on him. The wolf would try to climb out and suffocate on dirt. The wolf would get out and hurt someone. Hurt his dad. Kill his dad. He was going to have a heart attack.

He heard the blood rushing in his ears and couldn't catch his breath. He tried slowing it, knowing that if he didn't want to suffocate he should logically control his breathing, but the tightness in his chest was all-consuming. He began to pound on the walls. He shouted for his dad until his voice was raw but no one came.

He was alone.

He was trapped.

When Lyall returned to the site the next morning, he didn't find Remus in the box. In fact, the box had been burst through by something approximately the size of a 10-year-old werewolf. Frantic, he looked for wolf tracks in the mud and they led him to a very naked, bloody, and broken child curled up under a car a few hundred yards away. 

*~*~*

Here, now, however many feet under the ground they were, Remus was reminded of that night. The walls felt too narrow, the smell of wet earth was all around him. He couldn't even smell his friends, just the dirt and his own blood.

He'd dug his fingernails into his palm so hard he'd cut himself, bright red blood seeping out from the small crescents on his hands. It only added to his panic. He felt like throwing up. Like screaming. Like running. He  _ could _ run. He could leave. He would never have to stop running if no one could catch him. Just run and run and run until the next full moon and then do it all over again. Anything to get out of the box -- no, the tunnel, he corrected himself. 

Suddenly, a warm set of hands landed on his shoulders and he was assaulted by the smell of something blessedly other than dirt. He flinched and blinked hard, trying to fight the darkness at the edges that had narrowed his focus to the walls around him. He blinked a few more times and inhaled sharply, eager to fill his nose with the smell.

Sirius.

The other boy looked down at him with concern on his fine-boned face, already devoid of its baby fat. "Moony?" From his tone, it was clear this wasn't the first time he'd tried saying his name, but relief smoothed his features when Remus nodded mutely in acknowledgment.

"What's wrong, Moony?" Remus looked at him and then to James and Peter who stood a few feet away, obviously uncomfortable to be there but still concerned about their friend. Remus flushed and looked away and down at the ground. 

"I don't feel well. You go on without me. See… see what's up ahead." It sounded lame even to him, but he wouldn't,  _ couldn't _ blindly travel through a tunnel without knowing what was on the other side. 

Sirius drew his mouth in a firm, grim line before tightening his hold on Remus's shoulders. Without looking at the other two boys, he said, "James, Pete, you go on ahead. Map out this tunnel. I'm going to take Moons here to the hospital wing and get him sorted, hey?" He tried to keep his tone light, but it was as frail as Remus's excuse.

James opened his mouth to protest, but Sirius suddenly looked over his shoulder at him and whatever look was on his face made the bossy boy fall silent. "Alright then. Feel better, Moony," James called and turned to leave.

"Yeah, Rem--Moony," Peter corrected. The nickname was still new. "If we find something good we'll bring you back heaps."

When the boys left, Sirius looked at Remus again. "Let's go, mate."

"Not… hospital wing," Remus panted. He'd been falling back into his frenzied fear while they were talking. His vision was blurry again and he couldn't fathom explaining everything to Madame Pomfrey. She already did so much for him every month, he couldn't burden her on the off-phase.

"Okay then. Common Room okay? Get a big fire going… warm you up," Sirius suggested. At the mute nod he got in reply, he slung his arm around Remus's shoulder and walked him the fifteen feet out of the tunnel. After checking no one was in the hall, the boys emerged. 

Remus felt instantly better. Not perfect, because his chest still ached and he couldn't slow down his heart rate no matter how he tried, and he was still clammy, but better. The fresh air was a balm to his over-stimulated senses and he could see the sky through a window. Above ground. Better.

They walked in silence back to the Gryffindor Common Room. At the late hour of 1 am, they were its only occupants. Sirius stoked the fire and somehow procured two mugs of hot chocolate, complete with marshmallows and a tin of plain digestives. 

Remus let Sirius wrap him in a red tartan blanket and replace his shoes and socks with slippers. He accepted the cocoa and generous handful of digestives with a murmured thanks, but only stared at the fire, not imbibing. 

"Moony…?" Sirius's voice was strained and sad. Remus jerked his head up to look at him. His face was strained and sad, also, the flickering firelight casting long shadows along the elegant lines. 

Hurriedly, as not to worry him further, Remus sipped on the cocoa. He dipped a biscuit into it and ate it with surprising delicacy, which, he supposed, must've tipped Sirius off.

"You don't have to tell me everything, but… tell me something. What's wrong? What happened?"

"I'm not feeling well, that's all. I--" He was going to use a moon excuse, but Sirius was frustratingly fascinated with the phases of the moon and would know off the top of his head that the next full moon wasn't for another 11 days. Too soon to be feeling puny. "Might've had too much milk at dinner." Lame.

Sirius sighed and took a deep drink from his mug. He crawled out of his armchair and over to sit next to Remus. His smell was oddly comforting, his presence warm and stabilizing. "You think I don't know a panic attack when I see one?" His voice sounded far away, distant despite his physical proximity.

Before Remus could voice his confusion, Sirius pressed on. "Regulus has them a lot at home. During the holidays… me, too, I guess. Lot of pressure on us. Different kinds, different reasons. Feels like you're going to die." 

Remus's heart gave a painful twist and a little coil of anger bubbled in his belly. Someone had hurt his friend enough to cause him to feel the same way he did. He'd make them-- what, pay? He couldn't even be angry at his own father, let alone whoever had harmed Sirius.

He ate another biscuit, finding that the sugary combination was helping to bring his strength back up. "I… don't like small spaces. Not even really the dark, but I've mostly gotten over that."

He felt Sirius's body move next to him as he nodded in understanding. They were both staring at the fire, but it didn't  _ feel _ awkward. He felt comfortable, in their shared pain. After several long seconds and a third biscuit, he told Sirius about the box. 

"It was the first time in my life that the wolf had actually  _ hurt _ me. I'd of course come out the other side with scrapes and some cuts and feeling really awful, but it wasn't anything like this. It had always been as a result of the actual Transformation." It felt like someone else was telling all of this to Sirius and he was just watching from a distance, somehow, a ghost.

"But that time… the wolf was angry. It had never been truly  _ trapped _ before. I think I spent most of the night slamming into the concrete until it broke enough to squeeze through, and then there was the dirt to move through. All I remember is the loudest snarling, the taste of dirt in my mouth, and the rage the wolf felt at being kept away like that. I was still little, so I guess it took all night just to break ground. Dad had magicked the earth closed around the box so it wasn't loose dirt, but hard-packed. I was so tired and so weak when the moon set I just… dragged myself to the nearest shelter that wasn't underground.

I spent two weeks at St. Mungo's. Dad wanted to treat me at home but Mum was  _ so _ mad. I'd never seen her angry before but...in that moment, she was like any other mother, I guess, when their child is hurt. She didn't let Dad visit. I thought she was going to leave him. 

I'd broken most of my bones and got most of the scars I have now that night. The healers said I almost ran out of blood, or something…" He trailed off, remembering the mixed bag of fear, pity, or hatred on the healers' faces as each shift changed for his care. No one liked treating werewolf injuries. Any accidental blood or saliva contact on open skin meant infection.

The rage that boiled off of Sirius was startling. It overwhelmed Remus's senses and he instinctively wanted to tuck tail and hide, crawl to safety. Sirius trembled next to him, every muscle tensed. Remus heard his teeth creak as he clenched his jaw tight. "Your… your  _ dad _ put you in a box fifteen feet underground because he  _ thought _ that  _ might _ keep you from turning." It wasn't so much a question as an incredulous recount.

"And… and you're not mad at him?" Sirius whipped his head to look at Remus suddenly, and he found himself staring into wild gray eyes that had hardened into stone, anger writ clearly on his face. 

"I…" he sighed. "I was, I guess. I was mostly glad it was over and sad it didn't work. Let down. Disappointed. It was the sixtieth thing he'd tried, Sirius."

He heard him seethe the number and fully expected Sirius to start punching the wall or, somehow, teleport to the Lupin residence in Kent and beat up his dad. If anyone could do it, it would be Sirius. 

Instead, he was jostled in a bone-crushing hug, sloshing hot-but-not-scalding cocoa on the blanket in the suddenness. Sirius buried his head into his shoulder and held him so tightly Remus thought he might snap in half. "You did not deserve to be experimented on, Moony. I won't let anyone do that to you ever again." His words felt like a promise.

Remus's cheeks were wet and, embarrassed, realized he was crying. He hadn't expected such a response from Sirius. They usually argued too much to really have conversations like this, and he hadn't seen this side of him before. It was nice. He hugged him back much more gently before he was released. Sirius's head found a home on his bony shoulder and they returned to fire-watching. 

"Thanks, Sirius," Remus whispered after minutes of silence stretched between them. He didn't think he needed protecting from his dad-- that had been his last attempt anyway, which was good, because Remus had seen  _ several _ texts that suggested silver creams and shackles to keep the wolf at bay. Lyall either had the good sense to not risk his son's life further or Hope scared it into him.

He heard the deep breathing of a sleeping boy and noted Sirius had dozed off next to him. Remus nicked his last remaining digestives and added it to his pile, suddenly starving. He polished off his cocoa and biscuits in record time but didn't disturb Sirius, who still had one arm around his back and seemed at peace where he was.

Remus drifted off a little and when he opened his eyes, it was to the gleeful hushed giggles of two boys who had been very successful. The smell of chocolate bloomed in his nose and he blinked owlishly at James and Peter who each sported two giant paper bags, fit to burst. 

He nudged Sirius awake and they sleepily climbed up to their dorm to examine the contraband. With a flourish, Peter dumped an entire bag onto Remus's bed and out fell chocolates and toffees of all flavors and imagination, neatly wrapped and emblazoned with an "H".

Sirius's eyes were wide as saucers as he popped a chocolate frog into his mouth. He and James exchanged twin mad looks before each devouring an excessively large marshmallow puff that made little puffy clouds float around their heads. Cheeks full to the brim, they said in unison, "Honeydukes!" before promptly choking on the marshmallows. They saved each other and fell into the raucous laughter of boys who'd done something very naughty and had gotten away with it. 

Remus was swept into their tidal wave of joy and allowed himself to laugh, too, mouthing a sincere "thank you" to Peter for getting his favorite treats. 

"You have to come with us next time, Moony," Peter urged once the laughter died down. Remus felt Sirius look at him quickly but smiled.

"I think it would be worth the trip," Remus agreed. Fears were meant to be overcome, and Honeydukes sounded like a hell of a reward. 

Sirius smiled at him and Remus felt his chest flutter in a way it never had before. ' _ Must be all the chocolate _ .'


End file.
